


Castle of the Winter Witch

by thedevilchicken



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark, F/F, High Fantasy, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Rape/Non-con Elements, Throne Sex, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:14:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26178580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: They say there's nothing alive in the High Queen's castle, but they don't say nothing lives there.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Wicked Queen/Her Virgin Princess Bride
Comments: 5
Kudos: 109
Collections: Femslash After Dark 2020





	Castle of the Winter Witch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harpalyke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harpalyke/gifts).



The shadows are watching. They always watch. 

They've been there since the night she arrived at the High Queen's castle; she saw them, or at least she thought she did, lurking in the freezing mist just beyond the huge portcullis, at the far side of the bridge that her escorts wouldn't cross. They _couldn't_ cross it, because their horses shied and their dogs whined and she thinks they felt the same prickle of unease at the back of their necks that she felt, too. That wasn't unexpected, though: they say there's nothing alive in the High Queen's castle, but they don't say nothing lives there. 

She remembers stepping down from the carriage and onto the bridge that crosses the chasm - the men who'd brought her there called it bottomless but as she stood at the edge and peered over it, she could just make out the snowy, stony ground below. The snowflakes in the wind that whipped her hair and lashed her face felt hard enough to bruise and the surface of the bridge was covered with a glossy inch of oddly polished ice. Her feet were far from sure beneath her and she considered, almost numb with cold, how easy it would be to fall instead entering.

She didn't fall; she went inside, just as she'd been raised for, and turned at the sound of a chain on a crank to see the ironclad portcullis coming to bar her exit. Its movement was so slow that she could have easily slipped back out again but she understood no good could come from that; they'd send every man they had to find her and return her there. Its movement was slow but inexorable, and soon enough she was made captive by it. Through the gaps in the thick latticework that she gripped with her gloved hands, she saw her escorts set her things there, by the far side of the bridge, in the snow, and turn to leave her. She hadn't expected them to stay, but their departure - and the quiet left there by it - made her shiver much more deeply than the cold did. 

In the empty courtyard, in the mist that swirled around her feet and curled up against the tall stone walls, the shadows gathered, whispering beneath the howling wind. She could see them without seeing them, their formless edges, dark wisps in her vision in the moonlight filled with snow. At the far side of the yard, a door creaked open and a woman came toward her with a lamp held in one hand; she recalls wondering if it was the Queen who'd come to greet her, but it wasn't - she was nondescript, barely even there, her face so utterly forgettable that when she fumbles for the memory, the memory won't come. Perhaps that's just the Queen's magic.

"Follow me," the woman said, in a thin and faded voice, and turned to walk away again. The princess followed, and inside the door the castle was no warmer than the courtyard she'd just left. They passed narrow windows with their glass all frosted over and when she breathed, the air fogged up in front of her; the woman's breath, however, if she breathed at all, did nothing of the sort. And the shadows were there - she could hear them following along behind, down the endless corridors and up the spiral stair. She didn't dare to turn and look, but she's not sure what she feared most: that she'd see them there in the flickering lamplight, or that she'd see nothing at all. 

Her guide stopped. She knocked on a heavy wooden door then pushed it open and gestured brusquely for her to go inside. Her heart beat so hard that the throb of her pulse in her veins made her ache almost from head to toe. The door closed with a low and oddly final sound not unlike that of the portcullis and before her, as her eyes became accustomed to the moonlight, she saw the old stone throne. The Queen was sitting on it. 

She's not sure what she expected, because no one had ever told her what she could expect. She'd known for her entire life that that life was not entirely her own, of course; she was born at the stroke of midnight on the winter solstice eve at the fourteenth centenary, and so she was always meant to be the High Queen's bride. It didn't matter who she was, that she was a princess of the blood and her father was King of the Seventh Realm. Even kings pay tribute to the High Queen of the Nine Realms, to the Winter Witch in her castle high up in the mountains. They know what happens when her tribute's not paid: there used to be nine kings, and nine kingdoms, but now the ninth has nothing but the ice and snow. The Queen made the ninth her home, and took the dead king's castle as her own.

They know what happens when tribute's not paid, but no one's seen the queen and lived to tell the tale in several hundred years. She didn't know what to expect but what she saw was unexpected. Their High Queen of fourteen hundred years stood and stepped down from her throne, down the frosty steps, and beckoned to her. The princess went forward, toward her, and when she slipped, the High Queen caught her by the wrists and steadied her. Even through her clothes, the Queen's grip burned cold. 

She's always been tall, since she was a girl; at seventeen years old, she was tall for a woman, but the Queen was taller still. She's always been pale, but the Queen's skin was paler. Her eyes are light, but the Queen's were lighter. And where her hair is fair as spun gold, and was hanging loose around her shoulders, the Queen's was dark and twisted up in braids like snakes around her jagged silver crown. The moonlight shone in the silverwork, and in her ageless ice-grey eyes. 

The crown was all she wore; otherwise, her skin was smooth, bone-white and bare. Her limbs seemed long and thin but hard, her breasts full, her figure slim, like something from a dream. She stood barefoot on the flagstones and the princess stared, wide-eyed. The Queen removed her long fingers from around the princess' wrists, but she didn't move away. The princess stared. The Queen stared back. 

"Your Highness..." she said. Her voice trembled. The Queen smiled. Her teeth were sharp. 

They call her the Winter Witch; when she turned her hands palms up and tilted her head just so, the princess's clothes dropped to the floor in shreds like pretty silk confetti. She gasped at the cold against her skin as her nipples stiffened into peaks, and gasped at the way the High Queen looked at her. 

"Sit," the Queen said, and she gestured to the throne there on its dais in the empty room where once upon a time a whole king's court would meet, and so the princess went to it. She still had her boots, at least, and how perverse the gratitude she felt for that seems now; she went to the throne, and the shadows whispered underneath the clicking of her heels against the floor. She turned, and she sat, and she shivered at the chill of the stone throne against her skin. She knew if she ran, well, there was nowhere she could run to.

As the Queen approached, the shadows watched, gathering, so close to taking form that she could almost see them. As the Queen stood before her, pale and beautiful and stark, ageless, timeless, hard, the shadows whispered. The Queen knelt, and the princess gasped as the Queen's cold hands pushed her legs apart. She pulled her forward, to the seat's leading edge; she raised her knees and draped them wide over the throne's stone arms. If she hadn't been so very cold, the princess might have blushed. As it was, all she could do was bite her lip and shiver as she sat there, utterly exposed. 

No one had told her what to expect, because no one had known. No one could have told her to expect the High Queen's fingernails against the inside of her thighs, raking from her knees and up. No one could have told her to expect the way her wide-spread legs would part her lips, just barely, but enough that when the Queen's hand strayed down between her thighs her fingertip could trace the slit where her lips didn't meet. She gripped the arms of the throne as if her life depended on it, so hard her knuckles stood out white, but the Queen did not intend to stop; she lowered her crowned head and licked her there, her tongue so cold it almost burned. The princess whimpered. The Queen just laughed, like ice in the wind. 

She's not sure how long she sat there, as the cold began to seize her, as the Queen's cold skin leeched all her warmth. She remembers how the Queen's mouth went tight and she sucked her down there, teased her with her frosty tongue, how her fingers stroked her folds till she could barely feel at all. She remembers how the Queen's long fingers pushed inside her, suddenly, abruptly, made her cry out, and that cry echoed in the not-quite-empty hall. She had never been touched like that before, not once, not ever. She could only feel ashamed of how wet she was then, between her thighs, as her legs pulled tight against the throne's stone arms and her back arched hard. She didn't want it, but she knew that it was all that she could ever have. She didn't want it, but where else could she go?

And when she came, as her cry fogged the air, the shadows coalesced. Fourteen women watched her. Fourteen brides, one for every hundred years. They can never leave.

They say there's nothing alive there in the High Queen's castle. For now, she knows they're wrong, because she's there and she's still living. But she doesn't know how long she'll last. 

As she waits for her Queen at the foot of the throne, the shadows watch. One day soon, she knows she'll slip into the mist and join them.


End file.
